Creatures 1 Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some Frequently asked questions - that are things that are newbies to Creatures or the Creatures' community often want to know. There's convieniently broken into categories, so click on the link of the category most likely to have your question and you'll be taken directly to it.

Can a Norn pick up an egg? Unfortunately yes. :) My norns seem to love playing football with any newly laid eggs around the place. After a norn has picked up and egg it will not hatch unless you put it in the incubator.

Is it possible to get rid of an unwanted egg? It is possible to freeze them by picking them up, but without the use of a cob (like the remover spray) you can not get rid of them.

How do I get my Norns into lifts? Well norns very rarely do what they don't want to do, but often by putting a toy they are playing with or waving your hand near the lift and calling their name will make the Norns come over to the lift. You can then quickly scroll up and hit the call button on the level you want to go to before the norn moves away.

Why has the incubator closed? This is a way to stop over population in Albia. Once you reach 12 Norns the incubator closes and all Norns must hatch in the wild. This means if you disturb an egg while it is hatching by picking it up, it will not hatch until you export some Norns and the incubator opens again.

How do you create those Norn pictures on your page? To make a norn picture without the background, you can download a program called NornPose and actually choose what position you'd like the norn to pose in. Anything else in the picture I draw in by hand in PSP.

How do I save the norn pictures I take in the owner's kit? There is an export button near the bottom of the photo page. This lets you save the image as a .bmp file which you can then open in MSpaint (in the accessories folder in the start menu) or any other painting program.

When I look at the picture on the back of the Creatures CD case there is a picture of a hot air balloon above the pond but I don't have one, where is it? You can download a hot air balloon from Slink's Specials

My norns don't seem to have an angry face. Whenever they say that they are angry they just smile and stomp their feet. Creatures 1 norns have an angry face, but they only use it *very* rarely. This is quite lucky though because the angry face is quite freaky, especially on a c1 norn.

Is there a way to make certain a female will become pregnant? There is no way to make certain a female will become pregnant when she mates. If the female is to be pregnant, she must have a certain level of fertility, lifeforce, progesterone and sex drive. If these levels are lower than they should be she will not be pregnant.

Is Norn inbreeding a problem? Not really. Because Norns only have haploid genes it makes no difference whether a Norn's mother is closely related to it's father. In fact in a such a closed breeding circle (you can't have more than 12 Norns at once) having diploid genes and all of the problems of inbreeding that come with diploid genes, would probably be a disadvantage.

Do Grendels Dance? Yes, Grendels can dance too! Their favourite is the honey wiggle.

Do Norns Dance? Yes, Norns can do a little dance sometimes. The most popular is the Choo Choo, in which the Norn faces the camera and stomps his foot on the ground, going round and round. They Sometimes moves their arms too.

What's a Wolfling Run? A Creatures game where the Norns run wild and are not looked after or taught. Sometimes there are Wolfling competitions that see which Norns survive the longest

Are there any other types of Norns? Yeah, if you look around on the internet you'll be sure to find some new breeds for any of the games.

What is the different between genomes and sprites? A genome is the genetics file for a norn. It contains all the genetic material for a norn. Sprites are the norn's pictures for the game. Norns that look different from normal norns come with the sprite files that Creatures needs to make them look like that. Without these files Creatures just makes them look like an existing breed of norns.

What's a geat? A creature that isn't norn, ettin or grendel. It's a spare slot in the creatures scriptorium for developers to create new creatures.

Where are Grendels born and how do that always end up on the island? The grendels are born in that murky jungle area where the submarine is located. At the very top there is a platform. If you look very carefully, you should see a green tube-like thing with yellow warts on it. The grendel egg comes out of there. The reason the grendels always end up on the island is they probably go over on the boat, but your guess is as good as mine!

How can you get an immortal norn? Easiest way is to download one. Norns with 100% lifeforce are called immortal norns, but they still can die if they eat poisonous stuff.

What's A Shee? The Shee were the the race that looked after the Norns, they Left Albia in search for a new, more Spherical home.

What is the CDN? The CDN is a forum for Creatures and Creatures 2 add-on developers. There are special documents available there and a set of fabulous newsgroups that you can use to pick more experienced developer's brains when you run into problems.

What's the difference between a cob and an agent? Agents are the fancy name for C2 cobs. All C1 cobs, and most C2 cobs are just called cobs by most people in the Creatures community.

What's a cob? A cob is a Creatures OBject. An accessory that you can import into Albia for your Norns to use. These can be useful implements like seed launches or teaching tools, toys like dolls and trains, food like icecream or any other sort of object that is already in Albia.

Cobs are new objects for Albia (often made by people who aren't from cyberlife). Creatures 2 comes with a special applet to bring them into your albia called the object injector. You can download new cobs from all over the internet and expand and add to your Albia.

Is there anywhere I can find a listing of all cobs for download? Yes! You need to visit Where's the cob, a brilliant page that has a link to every known cob on the internet. It's the perfect place to find something new for C2 and an even better place to track down the URL for those indispensible cobs you lost off your harddrive.

Why won't my cobs install properly? First check you've extracted all the files to the right directories. You can find out which directories the files should go in by reading the text file of the cob you are installing.
Make sure the cob you are trying to inject was created for the game you're trying to inject it into. C1 cobs are for C1, C2 cobs are for C2 and C3 cobs are for C3. Cobs will only work in the game they're designed for.
Make sure the cob has been unzipped. If the file you are trying to import has a .zip extension, it needs to be unzipped.
For more information visit the C1, C2 and C3 cob installation pages.

Is there a limit to the number of cobs I can have in Albia? Yes there is. It takes a very large number of different types of cobs to reach that limit though.

Where do I buy Creatures? You should be able to buy it from your local software store, but if this fails, you can buy it online from the offical Creatures' site.

Why is my wagon going around and around Albia? Caos problem I'm guessing. Sometimes the cob scripts corrupt and the only thing you can do is live with it or restart your world.

Is it possible to convert a C2 or C3 norn to a C1 format? Nope, it isn't.

Where do norns go when they die? LOL! Who knows!? The recycling bin?

Is there a demo of Creatures? No. Cyberlife never released one, and isn't intending to. If you want to play Creatures you need to buy it I'm afraid.

Do I have to pay anything to have an Albia or a Norn? Yes, you need to buy the a game called Creatures. You can buy it from most software stores or from the official creatures' site. There are three games in the series.

Sometimes an egg gets stuck in the sky of Albia and I see my norns looking at it. What's with that? That's an old problem. The egg got "stuck" while it was being laid. Probably happens because your scriptorium is too full (you've got too many objects and stuff in the world). The norns will often look at the stuck egg in your world too for some reason. Anyway, don't worry about that, it's just one of the idiosyncracies of C1.

How come I can't access the genes kit in the sciece applet? That part of the science kit just lets you see some of the genes so you can compare them to previous Norns. To do any genetic engineering you need a special program like the Cyberlife one, or a third party editor like CGM or the Creatures Editor.

If a grendel hits a pregnent norn will the baby die? Probably not. Best to keep grendels away from the norns though because when they hit them they pass on glytoxin.

Is there any way to get rid of or trap the grendel so that the norns can go everywhere with out the danger of the grendel? There's a heap of solutions to this little problem! You can download a grendel selector cob that lets you select the grendel and remove it from Albia. You could also get grendel friendly to make your grendels harmless to your norns. You can also get Grendel Guard to kill your grendels as they appear or the grendel cage to trap them in a little room where they can't get out.

Why can't I import my Norns? After you reach the limit of Norns, you can't import any more. This is so Albia won't get overcrowded and that's about all an average computer can handle.

How many Norns can I have in Albia at once? Only 16. After that new eggs will not hatch.

How many Norns can I have in my world? 12 is the limit for Importing them. But you can have 16 Norns in your World, before the Incubator Closes up.

How many Norns can I have on my hard drive? You are limited only by the space on your hard drive.

Is creatures available for Macs? Creatures 1 is available for macs! For more details visit the offical Creatures' site. It's not available for C2 or C3.

My norn has "unlearnt" it's name. What do I do? Just go to the owners kit and reregister the Norn.

My Creatures won't run in windows NT. There's a patch on the creatures' support site that allows you to run C1 in windows NT. The patch comes with instructions on how to install C1 on an NT system.

Why when I export my C1 norns do they lose their registration, and I can't get it back? Just reregister the norns in the owner's kit.

My submarine has sunk! What can I do? You need to download a patch from the Cyberlife Support page. This will rescue the submarine from the deep and give you a shiney new one.

How can I talk to my norns? You just type while you're in the creatures window and press enter when you're done and it comes up on the screen and the norns can 'hear' it.

My brother wrote a swear word into my game and now I can't get it out. What can I do? Get all your norns to learn the Encyclopedia nornica books and it should get rid of the word from their vocabulary. :)

Why is it norns eat weeds but never herbs? I don't know. :) Probably just to upset the hand. Really though, you probably just notice when they eat weeds because then you've got to go try to save them from certain death.

How do I keep the lifeforce of my norns up? The lifeforce doesn't tend to rise above 77% in C1 norns unless they are genetically modified or have a cob that injects glycogen (which is what the lifeforce is measured with). As long as you keep your norns feed, away from weeds and free of disease, their lifeforce shouldn't drop rapidly.

How do I get a genetically colored norn? There are several ways. You can download a coloured Norn that someone else has breed and breed it with your own Norns in the hope of getting some coloured ones. Alternatively, you could play with an existing Norn's genes with one of the genetics program (eg. GEL or EGFB) and make them like that.

What's a moniker? The moniker is the alphanumerical name Creatures assigns to each Norn when it is born. Each norn has a unique moniker and Norns with the same moniker have the same genetic material (unless they've been altered with a gene editor). Creatures just uses this to tell one Norn appart from another.

What is the genetics kit, and where can i get it? If I can get it, is it for macintosh? You'll need to buy it from the official Creatures site. I'm not sure if you can get it for mac, but you might be able to.

What are Sprites? Sprites are the pictures for Norns and cobs. Norns and cobs are sort of two layers thick, like a piece of cake. The .exp file is a bulky layer is the special A-life programing that makes your Norn run in Albia. The sprite is like the icing, it sits on top and is what you see. If you do not have the right pictures for newer types of Norns (such as Mernorns and Albian greys) they will not import into your game as a mernorn or Albian grey. They will import as a different type of Norn that your computer all ready has the pictures for.

What sort of program do I need to create sprites? You need a paint program (like mspaint) to make the inital .bmp file. Then you need a program like the sprite editor that comes with BoBCoB to convert the .bmp file into a .s16 or .spr file that creatures can read.

How can I put COBs in my web page? Put all the files you need in a zip file and then upload it to your server. You do this the same way you put html pages and images on your server.
Next you need to link to your cob files on your page. You do this exactly the same way you would link to another website. In HTML it would look like <A HREF="myFile.zip">Download my file</A>
Finally, if it's not your cob file you are required by the copyright laws to ask permission from the author to post it. Doing this before you post any cobs will save you problems later as some authors don't like other people posting their work.